Chasing Wolves (completed)

Chapter 17 Meg-Elaine

Chapter 17

Meg-Elaine

The next two rounds surprisingly end even quicker than the first, Iz the victor both times. I'll give Dimca this: he's nearly better than Vlain. And, when I focused hard enough through the near blur of their movements, I saw that a lot of their moves were identical, making it pretty obvious he taught her.

After Dimca pranced around the room with Iz giggling on his shoulders, bellowing 'hail to the queen' (apparently that was the price for losing), we all say goodbye. Jan almost didn't let us leave, we had to promise to all come back soon and stay longer. Which is totally not a problem for me, I like her, the little ball of old-fashioned sass that she is.

We all pile in the car, me taking my usual spot on Eli's knee as everyone else vies for the best spots in this sorry excuse of a clown car. It's not that the car is small, although the back seat is slightly smaller than normal, it's just that with nine people... yeah, it's a little cramped.

We drive past more warehouses, so many that I lose track, and end up... in front of another warehouse. I swear, vampires around here have no imagination. Lin jumps out and pulls open the huge bay door before driving into a huge room with only what appears to be an ambulance parked inside. I notice Iz has started shaking, apparently a reaction to the ambulance, and out of curiosity I ask her about it once the car's stopped and we've all piled out.

Panic obvious in her eyes, she nearly stutters as she explains. "Walter's here. Back when Henry... I almost... he's Paul's nephew... human..." She tapers off as I pat he back, finally understanding. Apparently when she was bitten she tried to eat Walter.

Lin leads us all to the elevator, saying we can get our stuff later, and we all just manage to cram inside. Flicking open the little EMERGENCY STOP box, he presses his thumb to a scanner and the elevator starts to descend. My hand instinctively reaches for where my katana usually hangs and Eli grabs and squeezes my hand reassuringly instead. He knows how nervous I secretly am around one vampire, let alone who-knows-how-many.

His huge warm hand's wrapped around mine, offering warmth and support instantly, and I know that I'll be just fine as long as he's with me.

The elevator stops and we all heave a collective sigh of relief, glad to be rid of that horribly stuffy box. We're at the end of a freakishly long hall and we all start up it, stopping only when there's a fork and then following Lin as he turns left. Now we're in a hall with dozens of doors (but the same bright white walls) and Iz all of a sudden runs up to one of the doors about half way up the hall. She stands outside it, bouncing slightly, and smiles at us as she waits for us to all catch up. It takes us a moment, since she super-ran to it, but we finally do.

"This was my room! Wait until you can see it, it's so cool!" And then she starts jabbering on about something to do with carpets, fiber optics, and someone named Winna.

Lin, seemingly ignoring her, walks up to the room right next to hers, pulling out a key and unlocking it. "This is my room. Come in." We all gladly pile in, leaving Iz to chatter to herself in the hall, and I take in his room. It's pretty large, about two thirds the size of Vlain's living room (the room that, for whatever reason, I compare to every other). His walls are white like outside but the furniture (a bookshelf, desk and chair, and dresser) are all painted a nice dark blue. Even though the walls are empty I can just barely tell where a bunch of posters used to hang. His king sized bed is bare, only a white fitted sheet on it, and I suddenly realize the fact that I'm getting really tired.

I vaguely remember Iz talking about how they had all their stuff shipped to a storage facility, so that must be where everything is.

Iz, having realized we all moved on without her, finally comes in and takes in the bare room with the rest of us. After seeing her present, Lin walks over to he light switch (or, more precisely, a little knob next to it) and suddenly switches off the lights. I gasp softly, suddenly going on high alert, and Eli's hand once again finds mine.

All of a sudden the ceiling's lit up, a trillion tiny stars twinkling above us. In the next second the stars are replaced by a clear blue sky, a few clouds scudding across in a nonexistent breeze. The next is as if we were looking up through a tropical rain forest's canopy, the sun filtering through all the different kinds of leaves, and a monkey jumps from tree to tree.

The last one he flips to is by far my favorite, even though I have no idea why. It's like looking up at a volcano that's just erupted. There's no flying lava or anything, it's more like the ash and smoke clouds. I watch, almost hypnotized, as they all swirl together, all different shades of grey, making intricate billowy patterns.

Then the ceiling goes dark and he switches back on the lights, effectively snapping me out of it. Iz's voice pipes up from behind me, "I had no idea yours could do that. Now I don't know which I like better, my carpet or your ceiling." What- is this what she was talking about her carpet for? It can do this, too? Now I wish she had spoken coherently enough for me to actually be able to understand her.